A conservation organisation has today announced the launch of a new campaign to ban the use of the term ‘poached eggs’.
The charity, WildWords, said in a statement to the press, “Words are very important and can send powerful messages. Poaching is a very bad thing, driving species to extinction, so talking about poached eggs endorses poaching and has to be stopped.”
WildWords want people to use the term 'free-boiled' eggs instead, reflecting the fact that the eggs are boiled loosely in water.
Travis Jarvis, CEO of WildWords, was asked if this was the most important campaign he could possibly be working on at this time. He replied, “Absolutely. People are free-boiling eggs everyday, we have to stop them describing it as poaching! Organised crime groups recruit poachers by showing them videos of Nigella Lawson ‘poaching’ eggs, and then people think it’s perfectly okay and even that poaching is a good thing to do.”
The charity have launched an online petition that people can read and sign up to at www.free-boil-petition.com, which has already attracted over 2,000 signatures.
Comments on the website suggest most signatories so far have been Scrabble and Countdown enthusiasts, rejoicing at the opportunity to use words to fight global harm rather than simply to win games.
Whether the campaign will reach the 100,000 signatures required for parliamentary debate remains to be seen, but they already have a supporter in the form of Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, who has now taking to describing his inability to cook as no longer being unable even to warm up a tin of baked beans, to instead being ‘unable even to free-boil an egg’.
It remains to be seen if the rest of the United Kingdom follows suit.